Chrome OS-Blog.com

At the RSA conference, Will Drewry (software security engineer at Google) announced a business version of Chrome OS. The release date is supposed to be some time in 2011. Besides the mere (prospective) existence, there aren’t any details known about it. So check back later, I’ll keep you informed.

After a couple of weeks full of rumors, first pictures and a video of a possible Chrome OS tablet appeared on the Chromium project website. Although the Chromium project is NOT Google, the fact that it was made by Glen Murphy, a lead UI designer for Chrome OS at Google, can be seen as an announcement for a device like that. The video shows a demonstration of the user interface. Click here to see pictures, video and a list of already known features.

The MSI dual-screen netbook announced at the CES will most likely be shipped with Windows 7 or Chrome OS depending on customer preference. This was confirmed by the company in an interview with LaptopMag. The device features a standard 10-inch TFT screen and a touchscreen that gives haptic feedback instead of a keyboard. There is, however, no information about other technical specifications as well as a price range.

Last year in November, Jon Stokes and Ryan Paul had engineering director Matthew Papakipos and Google PR Eitan Bencuya in an interview about Chrome OS. The interview was released in January 2010 and reveals detail information about Google’s new operating system. Click here fr a summary and a link to the full interview.

According to Jim Wong, president of Acer’s IT products division, the company plans to sell at least one million netbooks in 2010 that have Chrome OS preinstalled. He assumes Chrome OS netbooks will make up 10 percent of the company’s overall netbook sales this year.

Only one and a half year after the first release of Chrome, the fourth version of Google’s browser has been released. The latest version now features bookmark synchronisation between installations on different computers via the user’s Google account. There is also the possibility of installing extensions. Today, there are already 1,800 available for download.

Additionally, Google introduced several new APIs to make the browser talk to other applications. The Web-Storage-API makes it possible to save your work offline without the need to use Google Gears. The Web-SQL-Database-API lets provides access to local SQL databases and the Notofication API gives developers the opportunity to use the operating system’s notification area.

As in every update, also JavaScript speed was increased. Today, users have to request the update manually. However, all users will be automatically notified of the update in the next days.

In an interview with Digitimes Acer chairman and CEO J.T. Wang announced that Acer will be the first hardware vendor to offer a netbook with Chrome OS preinstalled. According to several industry sources the release date will be in the second half of 2010. This is the second time acer uses a Google OS. They already have their Aspire D250 with Windows XP and Google Android dual-boot capabilities on the market.

I added a description of how to convert an .img file to a .vdi file for Sun’s VirtualBox into my article Download: Chrome OS image for USB drives. It’s really easy and lets you use my newly created Chrome OS build from December 2nd in VirtualBox as well as from a USB stick.

Doug Anson from Dell made a special Chrome OS build for the Dell Mini 10v netbook. He finally got the wireless card working, although you have to wait for five to ten minutes until it actually detects wireless networks. You can find the image as an *.img file here. Note: all usernames/passwords are set to “dell”. A tutorial on how to get a bootable image file onto a USB stick is available here.

This video shows a demonstration of Chrome OS from the initial presentation at the Google headquarters two days ago. You can see the amazingly fast boot up procedure as well as the user interface. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me. Click here to see the full video.